“Do you want 'em ninety-six hundred an' twenty dollars' worth?” Shorty queried. “It's a hold-up, that's what it is,” Wild Water declared irately. “It's business,” Smoke retorted. “You don't think we're peddling eggs for our health, do you?” “Aw, listen to reason,” Wild Water pleaded. “I only want a couple of dozen. I'll give you twenty apiece for 'em. What do I want with all the rest of them eggs? I've went years in this country without eggs, an' I guess I can keep on managin' without 'em somehow.” “Don't get het up about it,” Shorty counseled. “If you don't want 'em, that settles it. We ain't a-forcin' 'em on you.” “But I do want 'em,” Wild Water complained. “Then you know what they'll cost you--ninety-six hundred an' twenty dollars, an' if my figurin's wrong, I'll treat.” “But maybe they won't turn the trick,” Wild Water objected. “Maybe Miss Arral's lost her taste for eggs by this time.” “I should say Miss Arral's worth the price of the eggs,” Smoke put in quietly. “Worth it!” Wild Water stood up in the heat of his eloquence. “She's worth a million dollars. She's worth all I've got. She's worth all the dust in the Klondike.” He sat down, and went on in a calmer voice. “But that ain't no call for me to gamble ten thousand dollars on a breakfast for her. Now I've got a proposition. Lend me a couple of dozen of them eggs. I'll turn 'em over to Slavovitch. He'll feed 'em to her with my compliments. She ain't smiled to me for a hundred years. If them eggs gets a smile for me, I'll take the whole boiling off your hands.” “Will you sign a contract to that effect?” Smoke said quickly; for he knew that Lucille Arral had agreed to smile. Wild Water gasped. “You're almighty swift with business up here on the hill,” he said, with a hint of a snarl. “We're only accepting your own proposition,” Smoke answered. “All right--bring on the paper--make it out, hard and fast,” Wild Water cried in the anger of surrender. Smoke immediately wrote out the document, wherein Wild Water agreed to take every egg delivered to him at ten dollars per egg, provided that the two dozen advanced to him brought about a reconciliation with Lucille Arral. Wild Water paused, with uplifted pen, as he was about to sign. “Hold on,” he said. “When I buy eggs I buy good eggs.” “They ain't a bad egg in the Klondike,” Shorty snorted. “Just the same, if I find one bad egg you've got to come back with the ten I paid for it.” “That's all right,” Smoke placated. “It's only fair.” “An' every bad egg you come back with I'll eat,” Shorty declared. Smoke inserted the word “good” in the contract, and Wild Water sullenly signed, received the trial two dozen in a tin pail, pulled on his mittens, and opened the door. “Good-by, you robbers,” he growled back at them, and slammed the door.